Opinion 鈥� Page 389
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Comment
Private housing starts dive well below levels in 1980s and 1990s recessions
Housing starts in England plunged in the final quarter of last year to levels not seen in modern times.At the depth of the last house building recession during the worst three month period at the end of 1992 private firms started 19,227 homes. In the final quarter of 2008 just ...
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War, Peace and Taylor Wimpey
鈥淚 am so fed up with this process.鈥漈his was the verdict of someone involved in the fraught and never-ending Taylor Wimpey debt talks this week.They were referring to the latest delay in signing off on a restructuring deal that has been more than six months in the making.Pen was expected ...
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Comment
Inflation, deflation, Japan and paradoxes
So consumer price inflation isn't falling as fast as many commentators had expected. Is that a surprise? Well not really.Ok there are lags in the systems. But with oil price falls, the cut in VAT and deep discounting the big plot twists pre-Christmas, it was hard to see where the ...
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Comment
More buyers sniffing around for bargain buys in the housing market, says RICS
More green shoots appear to be sprouting in the housing market with the surveyors' body RICS finding an increase in interest among potential homebuyers over the past three months.Sensibly RICS economists are not getting over excited by this, after all interest from buyers was at basement levels and was almost ...
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Comment
Could buying up unsold private stock be stifling social house construction?
Is it just me, or is there a link between the deals being struck through the Government's National Clearing House to take unsold private homes into the social sector and the recent collapse in new construction orders for social house building?I ask because I have been doing some analysis and ...
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CommentThis is an emergency
The argument this week over whether Ed Balls meant to say we were in the worst recession for 100 years may have caused mild hysteria in the media, but it won鈥檛 have raised many eyebrows in construction
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Comment
The FD revolving door keeps spinning
Another week, another new finance director.The latest move sees David Wilton promoted to take over the reins from Bob Hartley at White Young Green. The reshuffle sees Hartley move sideways to become services director as WYG braces itself for the recession.The last few months have seen FD changes at Atkins, ...
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CommentThe new realism
The economic downturn isn鈥檛 without its consolations. It seems to be ushering in a new age of collaboration in construction and a more sober reckoning of what we鈥檙e about
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Comment星空传媒 buys a pint... for East
East are a busy lot. In December last year they landed the job of working out what should happen to the whole district of Farringdon over the next 25 years, including planting a Crossrail station in the Smithfield meat market area
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CommentBecause we care
Not yet found the perfect gift for your loved one? How about a bottle of Zaha perfume, a 拢100m apartment or two or maybe just a trip to the UK鈥檚 most romantic building? Wherever that may be...
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CommentThe choice is theirs
In response to your article on the Greater London Authority鈥檚 housing targets ("London council in crisis talks over affordable homes target,"), the GLA鈥檚 approach is based on realism and focuses on working closely with local councils
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Comment
Like with like
With reference to the issue of foreign trades taking UK jobs, while the government is correct in stating that we can all apply for these jobs, that everything is fair and square and minimum wage laws and so on are covered, this does not mean that the wages paid to ...
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Comment
Local difficulty
Your correspondents, Patrick Cooper and Sally Hughes, do not want the John Roan School to move to a new site on the Greenwich Peninsula as part of the 星空传媒 Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. They are perfectly entitled to their views, although I do not myself agree with them.
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Comment
It's simple really
To meet the BSF programme, we need to respond to the current financial environment
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Comment
Bamboozled by banks
Several articles in 星空传媒 mention the fact that most building companies have, or are about to, breach some of their banking covenants
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Comment
Black mark
In response to Mr Forlane (19 December), the Construction Skills Register (CSR) would like to make readers aware that the Black CSR card (as it is known in Northern Ireland) is not as easily acquired as he suggests
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CommentHow to stay healthy
Hands up all those who have been tempted to cut training on safety during the downturn? Do so and your business will suffer
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Comment
Construction new orders: the Good the Bad and the Ugly
The latest new orders figures confirm the dire state of work in the construction pipeline.There was a drop of 拢6 billion in new work construction won in 2008 compared with 2007, which points to a rough road ahead.While there are some reasons for optimism within the infrastructure sector and public ...